The following evening, as Emily walked through the shadowy woods near the convent, the sight of the old towers rising among the trees reminded her of the unfortunate nun whose condition had deeply affected her.
She wondered anxiously how the poor woman was and wished to see some of the friends she had once known there. So she and Lady Blanche continued their walk toward the monastery.
At the convent gate stood a carriage. The horses were still breathing heavily, showing that it had arrived only moments before. Yet an unusual silence filled the courtyard and the cloisters as Emily and Blanche passed through them toward the great hall.
There they met a nun crossing toward the staircase.
“Can you tell me how Sister Agnes is?” Emily asked.
“She is still alive and aware of what is happening around her,” the nun replied. “But we do not believe she can survive the night.”
In the parlour, Emily found several of the young women who lived at the convent. They were delighted to see her again and eagerly told her about everything that had happened since her departure.
Emily listened with interest, but only because the stories concerned people for whom she had once cared.
While they were talking, the abbess entered the room.
She greeted Emily warmly, clearly pleased by her visit, but there was a deep sadness in her expression.
After exchanging the first greetings, the abbess sighed.
“Our house has become a place of mourning,” she said. “One of our daughters is now approaching the end of her life. Perhaps you have heard that Sister Agnes is dying?”
Emily expressed her sorrow.
“Her death gives us a serious and powerful lesson,” the abbess continued.
“We should learn from it and prepare ourselves for the change that awaits every one of us. You are still young, Emily, and you have the chance to secure the greatest comfort of all—the peace of a clear conscience.”
“Keep that peace while you are young, so it may support you when you grow old. For sadly, the good deeds of our later years cannot completely erase the mistakes of our early life.”
Emily wished to say that no sincere act of kindness was ever wasted, but she remembered that it was the abbess speaking and remained silent.
“The final days of Agnes have been admirable,” the abbess continued.
“May they make up, in some measure, for the mistakes of her earlier years. Her suffering now is terrible, but perhaps it will bring her peace in the life to come.”
“I left her with her confessor and with a gentleman who has just arrived from Paris. She has wished to see him for a long time. I hope they can bring her the comfort that her troubled mind has lacked.”
Emily sincerely hoped the same.
“During her illness, she has sometimes spoken your name,” the abbess said. “Perhaps seeing you would comfort her. When her visitors leave, we may go to her room, if the sight is not too painful for you.”
“However,” she added, “we should learn to face such scenes. Though painful, they are useful to the soul and prepare us for the suffering that awaits us all.”
The abbess’s words made Emily thoughtful.
They reminded her of her beloved father’s final moments. She remembered his weakness, his sorrow, and the place where he had wished to be buried.
She remembered how deeply moved he had been when he learned he was near Château-le-Blanc.
She remembered his request that his remains be placed in a particular spot inside the monastery church.
Most of all, she remembered the solemn command he had given her—to destroy certain papers without reading them.
She also recalled the frightening and mysterious words she had accidentally seen in those papers.
Whenever she thought of them, her curiosity returned with painful force. She longed to know what secrets they contained and why her father had forbidden her to examine them.
Yet one thing always comforted her.
She had obeyed him.
She had trusted his judgment and destroyed the papers exactly as he had ordered.
The abbess soon became silent, clearly too affected by the suffering she had just witnessed to continue speaking.
Emily and the others also remained quiet.
Then a stranger entered the room.
It was Monsieur Bonnac, who had just left Sister Agnes’s chamber.
He looked deeply disturbed, but Emily noticed that his face showed something closer to horror than grief.
He quietly led the abbess aside and spoke with her for several minutes.
The abbess listened with great attention.
Monsieur Bonnac spoke carefully, as though every word carried great importance.
When he finished, he bowed silently to everyone and left.
Soon afterward, the abbess suggested that she and Emily visit Sister Agnes.
Emily agreed, though she felt some reluctance.
Lady Blanche decided to remain below with the other residents.
When Emily and the abbess reached the chamber door, they met the confessor leaving.
As he lifted his head, Emily recognized him immediately.
He was the same priest who had attended her dying father.
But he passed without noticing her, and Emily entered the room.
On a mattress lay Sister Agnes.
A nun sat beside her, watching over her.
Emily almost failed to recognize the woman.
Her face had changed terribly.
Her skin was pale and lifeless.
Her hollow eyes were fixed upon a crucifix that she held against her chest.
She seemed lost in deep thought and did not notice Emily or the abbess until they stood beside her.
Then she slowly turned her eyes toward Emily.
Suddenly, terror filled her face.
She screamed.
“Ah! That vision has come to me in my dying hour!”
Emily stepped back in fear.
She looked desperately toward the abbess for an explanation.
The abbess calmly signaled that she should not be frightened.
“Daughter,” she said gently, “I have brought Mademoiselle St. Aubert to visit you. I thought you would be pleased to see her.”
Agnes did not answer.
She continued staring at Emily.
“It is truly her!” she whispered.
“All that beauty and fascination remain in her face—the same charm that led to my destruction!”
“What do you want from me? Why have you come? Have you come to demand revenge?”
“It will soon belong to you. It already belongs to you.”
“How many years have passed since I last saw you? My crime feels as if it happened yesterday.”
“I have grown old beneath its weight, while you remain young and beautiful—beautiful as you were when you forced me to commit that terrible act!”
“Oh, if only I could forget it!”
“But what would that change? The deed is done.”
Emily was horrified and wanted to leave.
But the abbess held her hand.
“Stay a little longer,” she whispered. “She may soon become calm.”
The abbess tried to comfort Agnes, but the dying woman seemed unaware of her.
Her eyes remained fixed on Emily.
“What are years of prayers and repentance?” Agnes cried.
“They cannot wash away the horror of murder!”
“Yes—murder!”
“Where is he? Where is he?”
“Look there! Look! He is walking across the room!”
Emily looked around, but saw nothing.
“Why have you come to torment me now?” Agnes cried, staring at empty air.
“Why was I not punished before?”
“Oh, do not look at me so sternly!”
“There again!”
“It is her!”
“Why do you look at me with such sadness?”
“And why do you smile?”
“Do not smile at me!”
“What was that sound? Was that a groan?”
At these words, Agnes collapsed.
Emily, unable to bear the scene, leaned against the bed while the abbess and the attending nun tried to revive her.
“Be calm,” the abbess told Emily.
“The madness is passing. She will recover soon.”
“When was she last like this?” she asked the nun.
“Not for many weeks,” the nun replied. “But her mind has been greatly disturbed by the arrival of the gentleman she wished so much to see.”
“Yes,” said the abbess.
“That must have caused this attack. When she improves, we shall leave her to rest.”
Emily agreed.
Although she could offer little help, she did not want to leave while Agnes might still need assistance.
When Agnes finally regained consciousness, she looked at Emily again.
But the wild terror had disappeared.
A deep sadness had replaced it.
After several moments, she spoke weakly.
“The resemblance is extraordinary.”
“Surely it must be more than imagination.”
“Tell me,” she continued, turning to Emily, “although your name is St. Aubert, are you not the daughter of the Marchioness?”
“What Marchioness?” Emily asked in surprise.
The abbess gave her a warning glance, but Emily repeated her question.
“What Marchioness?”
“The only one I know,” Agnes replied.
“The Marchioness de Villeroi.”
Emily immediately remembered her father’s strange emotion when that name had been mentioned.
She remembered his request to be buried near the Villeroi tomb.
Now she felt a powerful desire to understand.
“Why do you ask me this?” Emily said. “Please explain.”
The abbess wanted to remove Emily from the room, but Emily’s curiosity was too strong.
“Bring me the little box,” Agnes said to the nun.
“I will show her.”
“Although she need only look into a mirror to see the resemblance herself.”
The nun brought the casket.
After showing her how to unlock it, Agnes took out a miniature portrait.
Emily looked at it.
Her heart stopped.
The face was exactly like the portrait she had discovered among her father’s papers.
Agnes held the miniature, stared at it silently, and then raised her eyes toward heaven.
She prayed silently for several moments.
When she finished, she handed the picture to Emily.
“Keep it,” she said.
“I leave it to you because I believe it belongs to you.”
“I have often noticed the resemblance between you, but never until today did it strike my conscience so deeply.”
“Wait, sister. Do not put away the casket yet. There is another picture I must show her.”
Emily trembled with expectation.
But the abbess again tried to stop her.
“Agnes is still confused,” she said.
“You see how her thoughts wander. In these states, she says many things and even accuses herself of terrible crimes.”
Yet Emily felt there was something more than madness in Agnes’s words.
The mention of the Marchioness and the portrait had awakened a powerful curiosity.
She wanted answers.
The nun opened the casket again and removed another miniature from a hidden compartment.
“Here,” Agnes said.
“Look at it carefully.”
“Let it teach you a lesson about vanity.”
“Look at this picture and compare what I once was with what I have become.”
Emily took the portrait.
The moment she saw it, her hands almost dropped it.
It was the face of Signora Laurentini—the woman whose portrait she had seen years before in the castle of Udolpho.
The woman who had disappeared so mysteriously.
The woman Montoni had been suspected of murdering.
Emily stared in silence at the portrait and then at the dying nun.
She tried desperately to find some resemblance between them.
But the beautiful woman in the portrait and the ruined figure before her seemed completely different.
“Why do you look at me so harshly?” Agnes asked.
She misunderstood Emily’s expression.
“I have seen this face before,” Emily finally said.
“Was this truly your appearance?”
“You may well ask that,” the nun replied.
“But once people thought this portrait looked very much like me.”
“Look carefully at me now and see what guilt has done.”
“I was innocent then.”
“The evil passions within me were sleeping.”
Then she reached out her cold, damp hand toward Emily.
Emily shuddered at the touch.
“Listen to me, sister.”
“Beware of the first surrender to passion.”
“Beware of the first.”
“Once passions are allowed to rule us, they move quickly and become impossible to control.”
“They lead us to places we never imagined.”
“They may even lead us to crimes that years of prayer and regret cannot erase.”
“A single passion can become so powerful that it destroys every other feeling within the heart.”
“It possesses us like a demon.”
“It makes us act like one.”
“And when its purpose is fulfilled, it leaves us suffering from the emotions it had only hidden—not destroyed.”
“Then we awaken as if from a dream.”
“We look around in horror.”
“But the deed is already done.”
“Nothing in heaven or earth can undo it.”
“And the ghosts of conscience never disappear.”
“What are wealth, honor, and even health compared with the peace of a pure conscience?”
“What are poverty, disappointment, and despair compared with the pain of a guilty soul?”
“How long has it been since I knew peace?”
“I once believed that love, jealousy, and despair were the greatest sufferings a person could endure.”
“But they were nothing compared with the torment of conscience I have suffered.”
“I once tasted what people call the sweetness of revenge.”
“But it lasted only a moment.”
“Remember this, sister.”
“Passions are seeds.”
“They may grow into virtues or into sins, depending on how they are cared for.”
“Unhappy are those who were never taught to control them.”
“Unhappy indeed,” said the abbess.
“And those who do not understand the true teachings of religion.”
Emily listened in silence.
She continued studying the portrait.
The resemblance to Laurentini’s portrait at Udolpho became clearer and clearer.
“This face is familiar to me,” Emily said carefully.
“I have seen someone like this before.”
“That cannot be,” Agnes replied.
“You have never seen this portrait.”
“No,” Emily answered.
“But I have seen another extremely similar.”
“Impossible,” Agnes said.
“It was at the castle of Udolpho,” Emily continued.
“Udolpho!” Agnes cried.
“Udolpho in Italy?”
“Yes,” Emily replied.
“You know me then,” Agnes whispered.
“And you are the daughter of the Marchioness.”
Emily was startled.
“I am the daughter of Monsieur St. Aubert,” she said.
“The lady you mention is a complete stranger to me.”
“At least you believe that,” Agnes replied.
Emily asked why she should believe otherwise.
“Because of the family resemblance you bear to her,” Agnes answered.
“The Marchioness was known to have loved a gentleman from Gascony before she was forced by her father to marry the Marquis.”
“Poor, unfortunate woman!”
Emily remembered her father’s reaction when hearing the Marchioness’s name.
If she had trusted him less, these words would have shaken her completely.
But she could not believe for a moment that her father had been guilty of dishonor.
Still, she desperately wanted to know the truth.
“Do not ask me more about that subject,” Agnes said.
“It is a terrible memory.”
“I wish I could erase it forever.”
Then she paused.
“How did you discover my name?”
“Through your portrait at Udolpho,” Emily replied.
“This miniature is almost exactly like it.”
“You have been to Udolpho?” Agnes cried.
“What memories that name awakens!”
“Scenes of happiness, suffering, and horror.”
At that moment, Emily remembered the terrible sight she had witnessed in the castle.
She remembered Agnes’s words about murder and guilt.
A dreadful thought entered her mind.
Could she truly be looking at a murderer?
Every strange action and every fearful confession seemed to support the idea.
But Emily was still confused.
She did not know how to ask the questions that might reveal the truth.
“Your sudden departure from Udolpho,” she began.
Agnes groaned.
“The stories that followed it,” Emily continued.
“The west chamber.”
“The hidden object behind the veil.”
“When murders are committed—”
Agnes screamed.
“What! Again?”
“Have you come from the grave?”
“Blood!”
“Blood too!”
“There was no blood!”
“You cannot say there was!”
“Do not smile!”
“Do not smile so sadly!”
Then Agnes fell into violent convulsions.
Emily could endure no more.
She rushed from the chamber and sent other nuns to assist the abbess.
Lady Blanche and the other residents gathered around Emily.
They were frightened by her pale face and trembling manner.
They asked countless questions.
But Emily only said that she believed Sister Agnes was dying.
They accepted this explanation.
They gave her remedies, and eventually she recovered slightly.
But her mind remained overwhelmed.
She wanted to leave the convent immediately, yet she stayed because she wished to know whether Agnes would survive.
After some time, she learned that the convulsions had stopped and Agnes was recovering.
As Emily and Blanche prepared to leave, the abbess appeared.
Taking Emily aside, she said:
“I have something important to tell you.”
“But it is too late tonight.”
“Please come and see me tomorrow.”
Emily promised she would.
Then she and Lady Blanche returned toward the château.
The deep darkness of the woods made Blanche uneasy.
The silence and shadows frightened her, even though they had a servant with them.
Emily, however, was too absorbed in the terrible events she had witnessed to notice the darkness.
The shadows only deepened her troubled thoughts.
At last, Blanche pointed ahead.
Two figures were approaching along the dim path.
Avoiding them would require entering an even more isolated part of the forest, where the strangers could easily follow.
But Emily soon recognized a familiar voice.
It was Monsieur Du Pont.
His companion was the gentleman she had seen earlier at the monastery.
The two men had been speaking so seriously that they did not immediately notice the ladies.
When Du Pont approached, the stranger took his leave.
They returned to the château.
When Count de Villefort heard of Monsieur Bonnac, he immediately recognized the name and invited him to stay at the château.
Monsieur Du Pont gladly delivered the invitation.
After some hesitation, Bonnac accepted.
At the château, the Count and his son tried to lift the sadness that surrounded their guest.
Monsieur Bonnac was an officer in the French army and appeared to be about fifty years old.
He was tall, dignified, and extremely well-mannered.
His face must once have been remarkably handsome.
But now it carried the expression of a man who had suffered deeply.
During supper, his conversation was clearly an effort of courtesy.
At times, he became silent and lost in painful thoughts.
The Count gently brought him back into conversation.
Watching him, Emily almost imagined she was seeing her own father again.
The company separated early.
Alone in her room, Emily could not escape the memories of the evening.
The discovery that the dying nun was actually Signora Laurentini filled her with horror and amazement.
The woman who had supposedly been murdered by Montoni was alive.
And now it seemed she herself had committed some terrible crime.
The nun’s hints about the Marchioness de Villeroi and her questions about Emily’s birth disturbed her deeply.
The story Sister Frances had once told about Agnes was now clearly false.
But why had that false story been created?
Emily could only guess that it had been meant to hide the truth.
Above all, she wondered about the connection between her father and the late Marchioness.
Her father’s grief when hearing the woman’s name.
His request to be buried near her tomb.
The portrait found among his papers.
All these things proved some connection existed.
For a moment, Emily wondered whether her father had been the man the Marchioness loved before she was forced to marry the Marquis.
But she refused to believe that he had ever acted dishonorably.
She imagined that the papers he had ordered her to destroy must have concerned this mystery.
She now wished more than ever to understand why he had considered them dangerous.
If she had trusted her father less, she might have believed those papers revealed some shameful secret about her birth.
But her faith in his character prevented such thoughts.
These reflections occupied her mind throughout the night.
When she finally fell asleep, she dreamed of the dying nun.
She awoke terrified, as if she were once again standing beside Agnes’s deathbed.
The next morning, Emily was too unwell to visit the abbess.
Before the day ended, she learned that Sister Agnes had died.
Monsieur Bonnac received the news sadly.
But Emily noticed that he did not seem as devastated as he had appeared the previous evening after leaving Agnes’s chamber.
Perhaps the death itself was not what troubled him most.
Perhaps it was the terrible confession he had witnessed.
Whatever the truth, he may have found some comfort in the inheritance Agnes had left behind.
His family was large, and the reckless spending of some members had recently brought him into severe financial trouble—even imprisonment.
The sorrow caused by the actions of his beloved son, together with the financial disasters that followed, had given his face the sadness Emily had noticed.
Later, he told Monsieur Du Pont more about his suffering.
He revealed that he had spent several months imprisoned in Paris with little hope of release.
During that time, he could not even see his wife, who had been away in the countryside trying unsuccessfully to find help.
When she finally obtained permission to visit him, she was so shocked by the change imprisonment and sorrow had caused in him that she became seriously ill.
“Our situation moved everyone who witnessed it,” Bonnac said.
“One generous friend, who was imprisoned at the same time, used his first moments of freedom to help me.”
“He succeeded.”
“My debts were paid.”
“But when I wished to thank him, he had disappeared.”
“I believe he became the victim of his own generosity and returned to prison from which he had freed me.”
“Every attempt to find him failed.”
“Kind and unfortunate Valancourt!”
“Valancourt!” cried Du Pont.
“Of what family?”
“The Valancourts, Counts Duvarney,” replied Bonnac.
Du Pont was overwhelmed.
The generous man who had saved his friend was the very rival who had taken Emily’s love.
But after recovering from his surprise, he told Bonnac that Valancourt was free and had recently been in Languedoc.
Then, because of his feelings for Emily, Du Pont carefully asked about Valancourt’s conduct in Paris.
Monsieur Bonnac’s answers changed everything.
Du Pont realized that Valancourt had been unfairly judged.
Though it caused him pain, he decided that he must give up his own hopes and allow Emily to return to the man she loved.
Such self-sacrifice deserved respect.
And Bonnac, if he could ever forget Valancourt’s kindness, would have wished Emily to accept the honorable Du Pont.
From Bonnac’s story, Du Pont learned that after arriving in Paris, Valancourt had been drawn into dangerous temptations.
His time had been divided between the parties of the charming Marchioness and gambling gatherings where other officers had encouraged him to participate.
He lost large sums while trying to recover smaller losses.
Eventually, his money disappeared.
Count De Villefort and Monsieur Henri had witnessed much of this behavior.
His brother, angered by his actions, refused to continue supporting his lifestyle.
Because of his debts, Valancourt was imprisoned.
His brother allowed him to remain there, hoping suffering would teach him a lesson before his habits became permanent.
In prison, Valancourt had time to reflect.
The image of Emily returned to his mind.
The distractions of Paris had hidden it, but never destroyed it.
Now he saw her innocence, kindness, and beauty more clearly than ever.
He realized how much he had sacrificed.
He had been tempted by passion, but his heart had never become corrupt.
With great effort and suffering, he freed himself from the habits that had imprisoned him.
After his brother released him, Valancourt immediately used his freedom to help Monsieur Bonnac.
With almost all the money he had received, he went to a gambling house and risked it all in one final attempt to save his friend.
He succeeded.
But while waiting for the result, he made a solemn promise never again to return to gambling.
After restoring Bonnac to his family, Valancourt left Paris for Estuvière.
For a while, the happiness of helping others distracted him from his own suffering.
But soon he remembered that he had lost the fortune necessary to marry Emily.
Life without her seemed almost impossible.
Her goodness, simplicity, and refinement now appeared even more precious because of what he had seen in the world.
Experience had taught him the true value of the qualities he once admired.
His regret became deeper, and sadness followed him even when he finally saw Emily again.
He believed himself unworthy of her.
Yet Valancourt had never committed the disgraceful acts people accused him of.
He had never accepted improper financial help from the Marchioness Chamfort.
He had never joined criminal schemes with gamblers.
Those rumors had mixed truth with falsehood, as often happens to unfortunate people.
Count De Villefort had believed them because they came from sources he trusted, and because Valancourt’s own careless behavior had made them seem believable.
Unable to explain himself fully to Emily, Valancourt had unknowingly strengthened her fears.
The misunderstanding had existed on both sides.
Now Monsieur Bonnac revealed the truth to Du Pont.
Du Pont decided not only to correct Count De Villefort’s mistake but also to abandon his own pursuit of Emily.
When the Count learned the truth, he was deeply troubled by the injustice he had caused.
Bonnac’s explanation convinced him that Valancourt had been trapped by bad influences rather than naturally drawn toward corruption.
Moved by Valancourt’s kindness and generous, though reckless, courage, the Count forgave his temporary mistakes.
He restored the respect he had once held for him.
To make amends, the Count immediately wrote to Valancourt.
He asked forgiveness for the wrong judgment he had made and invited him to Château-le-Blanc.
Out of kindness and consideration, the Count did not tell Emily about the letter or the discovery concerning Valancourt.
He wished to spare her anxiety until Valancourt’s arrival could bring certainty.
But he did not know that Valancourt’s recent despair had become far deeper than he imagined.